U.S. Still Behaving Badly in Africa

The United States has quietly made the strange move of delaying a United Nations report on the transfer of arms from the Rwandan government to rebels in the Democratic Republic of Congo led by criminal, Bosco Ntaganda. The delay is expected to be two weeks but I suppose that remains to be seen. And I say “quietly” since I struggled to find this mentioned in the mainstream American (“liberal”) media. But I suppose Fox News will step up to the plate and get this one…or not.

The only guess at a reason given for the delay is the fact the West feels guilty (rightfully) over past atrocities in Rwanda since the report will in all likelihood make the Rwandan government look bad. But it is pretty clearly the U.S. is main culprit behind blocking this report so the question is why and why now? We can only really speculate but let’s take a stab at it considering the facts and recent events.

One fact we know is that Egypt, under Mubarak, was a heavy supplier of arms to Rwanda just before the Rwandan genocide began in the mid 1990s where “in just over three months, 800,000 people were slaughtered, at least half of whom were children.” The relationship and arms sales of the U.S. to Mubarak and Egypt is well-known and needs no in-depth description here. So, more than likely, a large number of the arms floating around Rwanda that are being supplied to the rebels in DR Congo could be traced back to the United States and American arms manufacturers. Why is this so bad now and why should the report be delayed two weeks?

The answer should be obvious. If the report includes any information confirming a relationship between U.S. arms sales and these arms falling into the hands of war criminals, the U.S. government would look incredibly more hypocritical since it is currently trying to criticize Russian arms sales to Syrian leader Assad. I say “more” since the government already looks like a hypocrite considering the domestic arms policy and its effect on the drug war in Mexico I previously mentioned. A two week delay buys the government enough time for the pundits not to draw too many comparisons between the two situations since it will be mostly forgotten at that point.

Forgotten by everyone except those still suffering from these destructive policies.